Pressure with pellets, on the ears, face, hands and feet, is just as effective as penetration with needles if treatment points are correctly located. A pellet can be non-metallic such as a grain or seed. A metal pellet, commonly known to practitioners as migraine pellet, acu-pellet or press pellet, is embedded in the center of a circular tape section, about 7.5 mm or 0.3" in diameter, to be applied adhesively on the skin. The pellet is usually plated with titanium, gold or silver, and has a blunt and polished circular contact surface, about 1.2 mm in diameter, to prevent skin penetration.
The use of such pellets is wasteful, because the pellet has to be disposed together with its used tape after each treatment. Furthermore, adhesive application is unnecessary and often causes adverse effect after a prolonged period of time.
Technically, acupuncture and acupressure points are located with a point locator which includes a low-current galvanometer, commonly known to acupuncturists as galvanic skin response (GSR) monitor or, to bio-feedback therapists, as skin conductance (SC) monitor, a search probe and a grounding pole. The GSR monitor is connected, by conducting wires, to the probe and pole. The grounding pole is held in patient's hand to establish ground contact, while practitioner holds the search probe, like a pen, and presses the probe tip at different locations on the patient's skin to detect a point. A treatment point is located in the region where electrical resistance of the skin is relatively lower than that of its surrounding. When the tip of the probe contacts the skin in that region, the lower resistance causes a surge of electric current through the GSR monitor. The current surge signifies a point location and appears on the monitor as a variation either in the display for readings or in the level of monitoring noises and/or illumination.
After locating the points, practitioners have to free their hand from the search probe to perform treatments on patient, either with needles for acupuncture, or pellets for acu-point pressure. The switching from point locating to treating performance is inconvenient and time consuming.